Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Mitt Romney Flip-Flop: Now believes climate change is "real and a major problem"

Is Mitt Romney becoming a climate change crusader?
During his 2012 presidential bid, Romney was dismissive about
Democratic efforts to combat the effects of climate change, and he
pushed for an expanded commitment to fossil fuels. But in a speech in
California on Monday, Romney, who is considering a third run for
president in 2016, signaled a shift on the issue. According to the Palm
Springs Desert Sun, the former Massachusetts governor “said that while
he hopes the skeptics about global climate change are right, he believes
it’s real and a major problem,” and he lamented that Washington had
done “almost nothing” to stop it.
For Romney, this is his second about-face on climate change. In his
2010 book, No Apology, he called human activity a “contributing factor”
to melting ice caps. And in the run-up to the 2012 Republican primaries,
Romney backed a reduction in emissions to curb anthropogenic global
warming. “I believe based on what I read that the world is getting
warmer,” he told the Manchester Union-Leader in 2011. “And…I believe
that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution
is to that, because I know there have been periods of greater heat and
warmth in the past, but I believe that we contribute to that. So I think
it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and
greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the
climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing.”